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Q and A: Anita Lo

By Frank Bruni December 4, 2007 10:17 amDecember 4, 2007 10:17 am

Anita Lo talks about her influences, her favorite cookbook and the most overrated seasoning.

When Anita Lo opened Annisa in 2000, it was the culmination of more than a decade of work in kitchens around the city. She cooked with David Bouley in the late 1980s. She spent the early 1990s at Chanterelle. In the mid-1990s, she was the chef at Mirezi.

But Annisa is where she has truly come into her own, with an internationalist style that fuses ingredients and ideas from many different cuisines. It’s been a Greenwich Village favorite since it opened.

Who in your life has influenced your cooking the most?

There isn’t really one person who sticks out above the rest. I suppose my parents for exposing me to so many different cuisines and cultures, David Waltuck (of Chanterelle) for balance of flavor, Bouley and Taka for ingredients.

Which book has had the biggest impact?

“The Joy of Cooking”(the old one) was my first cookbook. I remember reading it for the first time and being fascinated that such a staple of Americana contained recipes for things like armadillo and squirrel. I still refer to it for basic pastry recipes and general ingredient information (and will in the future if I ever come across a raw armadillo).

Which foreign country (or region) do you most enjoy eating in?

There is nothing I love better than to experience new cultures and cuisines, so this question is a hard one for me. I guess if pressed, I’d have to pick Japan for its extreme focus on fresh ingredients in season. There is always something new to learn there.

Which restaurant meal from the past lives most vividly in your memory?

I had amazing omakase at a sushi bar in Singapore. We had been craving sake on my year of traveling the globe, and stopped in this little restaurant in a big Japanese department store. As we were drinking, I got glimpses of what the other clients were eating—stuff I’d never seen before. We made a reservation and came back the next day. It was course after course of exciting ingredients—little slimy, white eel-like creatures in a bowl, so fresh they were crunchy; the archetypical fava bean; various mini flower garnishes. The list goes on.

Saturday night is 80’s night on the radio. My knowledge of popular music pretty much ended in that era.

Which are the most overrated — and underrated — seasonings?

Overrated: argan oil. While I’d be the first in line to taste an oil that (from what popular opinion says) is made from pre-digested goat feed, I find the flavor underwhelming, especially for that price.

Hooray for the Sriracha plug–it’s just the best condiment ever invented, I think, and so it’s great to see a renowed professional chef call attention to its peppery, garlicky goodness. (Course she also gives a plug to “white eel-like creatures,” sounds like worms to me…)

Sriracha, really? Unless used verrry sparingly, I find it completely takes over the flavor of whatever you add it to. Why not just add fresh chilies and garlic? You can get the kick without all the preservatives.

It’s so nice to see someone of Anita Lo’s eminence share my opinion on green bell peppers! Her comment on lemon zest is interesting — I’m going to become more adventurous in my use of this already-beloved flavoring.

Finally, someone who shares my distaste for green bell peppers. While I can’t agree or disagree about argan oil’s culinary merits, it is an amazing product for the skin, hair, and nails. While there may be a shred of truth in the legend that some of the argan oil purchased streetside in Morocco originates from the nuts pre-processed by the digestive systems of industrious goats, rest assured that exported argan oil is harvested and processed in a much more modern and palatable way.

I just ate at the re-opened Annisa and was not that impressed. There used to be a certain charm to Ms. Lo’s cooking, but now it seemed so contrived – like a menu made from consultants and marketing people, not a chef, or heaven forbid, a cook! Between the dumpling debacle, the failed BBQ vernture and now this, it seems Ms. Lo needs some real guidance, or some grounding.